


Ten Reasons Why Mark Sheppard Is Not A Goddamn Therapist

by amorremanet



Series: 22 Weeks Is A Long Time [4]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Community: hc_bingo, Depression, EDNOS, Eating Disorders, Ficlet Collection, Friends With Benefits, Gen, M/M, Mental Health Issues, N Things, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-09
Updated: 2012-11-09
Packaged: 2017-11-18 08:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/558671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorremanet/pseuds/amorremanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Princess, <b>please</b>—just to whom do you think you're speaking here? You get frazzled because you think you looked at Jensen for too long while he's dating someone else. You're <b>not</b> trying to get him into bed." Mark shakes his head—why on Earth Misha thought that might work is just beyond him.</i>
</p><p>(In which Mark and Misha talk a lot about Misha's feelings, but don't really resolve anything. Set alongside, "That's Some Atrocious Breach of Privacy.")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ten Reasons Why Mark Sheppard Is Not A Goddamn Therapist

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompts, "depression" at ~hc_bingo and, "Revelation" for 100 things (reference prompts).

**_10._** It's the middle of the evening, only a few days after Halloween, the first time that Misha shows up at Mark's in need of one of their sessions. He shows up on Mark's doorstep in his baggy hangover hoodie and a foul mood, one that explains itself as soon as he flops out on the sofa and mentions Richard. And from there, it just gets worse: apparently, above all else today, he's thinking about Richard, about the fucked up way they ended, about his weight and about how it all feels like it's much too much.

"Life in general, I mean," he clarifies without being asked, fussing with the string in his hood. "I mean, my weight, too, but mostly, I mean life in general."

"Somehow, I figured," Mark says with a sigh—a measured, pensive one, because anything else might sound exasperated or make Misha feel unwelcome, like he's not allowed to talk about his problems. And it's rare enough that he's opening up without being prodded. Mark can't fuck that up. "You realize, however, that any stress you're feeling just makes you human, right? That you're allowed to feel like it's all much too much, without it meaning anything negative, as long as you don't do anything incredibly stupid."

"Well, define incredibly stupid for me? Just so we're on the same page."

"Oh, you know. Self-destructive. Other people destructive. Other people's property destructive. Anything that could get you arrested and sent off to prison. Which probably counts as a form of self-destructive, anyway."

"What about other people's relationships destructive?" Misha says this without a hint of irony or sarcasm—absent even the bare minimum for him, some kind of nudge-nudge, wink-wink silliness—and he pouts at the ceiling for a moment before giving Mark a look like he just watched someone kill a newborn kitten. "Does being a homewrecker count as doing something incredibly stupid?"

Mark rolls his eyes and combs his fingers back through his hair—and on some level, he can't believe that he didn't expect something like this to come up, now or at some point. "Whatever you're up to with Jensen and helping him get fatter?" Mark says, looking Misha in the eye and making sure that Misha doesn't look away. "Whatever you two are up to? It does not make you a homewrecker unless you're actively attempting to get him into bed—which I know you're not because I know you—"

"I could be attempting to seduce him! You have no idea what goes on at our apartment when you're not there—"

"Princess, _please_ —just to whom do you think you're speaking here? You get frazzled because you think you looked at Jensen for too long while he's dating someone else. You're _not_ trying to get him into bed." Mark shakes his head—why on Earth Misha thought that might work is just beyond him.

"And even if you _were_ trying to get him into bed? Well, you'd be able to get held accountable for that, but not for his part in it. Doing what you're doing makes you Jensen's friend, and a feeder, and if he and Jared are having little domestic spats, or going through a rough patch, or whatever else might be happening? That's all on them. Not you. It's not your problem or your job to fix their relationship—and if they ever break up? It won't be because you did _anything_. They're _adults_. They can make their own relationship work or not, for themselves."

"I just feel like… Jensen's putting so much into me and what we're doing—which has sexual undertones at the _very_ least because fucking _both_ of us get off on it—and maybe he's neglecting Jared a little bit?" Misha sits up, but it's only so he can flop onto his stomach and face Mark instead of sulking at the ceiling. "And I mean. I thought he _knew_ about my crush on him, but he _seriously_ thinks that everything between us is platonic, so it's like I'm taking advantage of him or something—and d'you know what the worst part about everything is?"

Mark takes a deep breath, heaves a sigh, supposes, "Everything about how you almost compulsively blame yourself for things that it's literally impossible for you to be responsible for?"

Misha blinks at him for a moment before he shakes his head. "Actually, I was thinking more like… Sometimes, I don't even know how much I'm in love with Jensen, and how much I'm in love with the idea of someone like Jensen wanting me? I just—I can't fucking _tell_ where the line here is drawn. So even if I did turn out to be a home-wrecking whore, it might end up being a case where, like… I get him, and then I lose interest because he wants me and that's all I needed, and now I want someone else to want me, so I've just ruined my best friend's life for no good reason. None at all."

"You've only been enamored with him for well on five years now, Misha. I think it's safe to say that you most likely love Jensen for himself, and not simply because you want him to want you. And besides that: you are basing this asinine conclusion on… what, exactly?"

Misha buries his face in a throw pillow for long enough that Mark considers kicking him. If not for the steady rise and fall of his back, Mark would wonder about the possibility of death—but eventually, he drags himself up, gives Mark a long, despondent look, and says, "The entirety of my dating history since Richard broke up with me?"

He pauses, shakes his head. "Just… it's not like I didn't love all of my exes. I _did_ love them all—well, that's debatable with Jeff, since we didn't do feelings, that was kind of the whole point, but we _liked_ each other, at least. Cared about each other on some level. But there was also that level of just… thinking that my exes were cool people and wanting them to want me so I could be cool, too. You know what I mean?"

Mark guesses that he thinks he follows, but doesn't suppose that anyone but Misha ever really knows what Misha means. Huffing like a little kid who didn't get a pony for Christmas, Misha rolls over, lands on his back again. And picks up without missing a beat: "I'm just… so much of me is tied up in him and he'll never even know about it? Richard-him, not Jensen-him, I mean. Jensen, I could still confess to, and I don't know, I might do it sometime, but… Richard? He's gone and I can't do anything about it, and I still miss him so much, it _hurts_."

Mark sighs—he has no earthly idea what to say to that. What he could possibly say that wouldn't just make Misha get somehow worse. So he tries a more indirect route: "So… what happened to make you come down to see me? Something must've pushed you into realizing you needed some kind of help."

Misha shrugs. "I'm slipping up," he says. "I don't mean that in the, 'fuck, I'm getting fat again' way, either. I mean it, like. Jensen watches out for me at home, but… can we start getting lunch or something? I've been skipping it lately, and I'm starting to like how it feels, and… it makes me want to get worse. You know what I mean?"

Unfortunately, Mark very much does. He knows what Misha means—well, not about how he's getting fat _again_ , but just this once, it's something that he can chalk up to misspeaking under duress—and he can't let Misha go that way again. So he accepts—they start getting lunch together whenever they're both on campus, which is most of the time. It's what's best for them.

*******

**_9._** It's during one of their lunches, down in the main student dining hall, that Misha starts to really worry Mark, not that he has any idea what to do about it. Mostly, Mark spends their lunches calling Misha out when he goes too long without eating—which happens more than often enough to notice—but a pattern emerges in how Misha avoids his food and how he avoids eating it. Namely, he stares at people. If it was just the fat or chubby people, Mark might understand it, but Misha seems to stare at everyone, regardless of their sizes, regardless of their apparent gender, regardless of anything about them.

He starts to worry Mark not because of the staring, but because of how he explains it, how absolutely cool he is when he points to two undergrad girls sitting next to each other, chattering away without any indication that they know that they're being watched, and identifies them for Mark: "The one on the left with the tray full of desserts? She's got binge eating disorder, I'll be you anything, and she'll probably be heading into bulimic territory soon enough. And the one on the right? I can't really get a hit off of her, she could be ED-NOS or she could be anorexic, but either way, she's pretty definitely not okay. Not even a little. She probably couldn't even pretend to be okay."

With a huff, Mark turns and looks at the girls in question over his shoulder, then moves to the other side of the table—moves to sit next to Misha—so at least he'll have some kind of excuse for why he's looking at these girls. One of them is definitely on the chubby side, though not too much so, while the other one's quite thin—Mark squints at them for a moment, then sighs. "And you are basing this analysis on, what, exactly? Because at the moment, all I'm convinced of is that you're doing a good deal of projecting your own issues onto some poor girls who are eating like normal people."

"I'm not _projecting_." Misha huffs and shakes his head. "I'm _analyzing_."

"Right, you're the Sherlock Holmes of eating disorders now, aren't you—and you definitely still don't have one yourself, I'm guessing?"

Misha shrugs and shakes his head. "How many times do I have to tell you that I don't have an eating disorder, Mark. It's just… I just have—"

"An anxiety disorder that sometimes has negative effects on your eating and, thus, your weight—right, right, Princess." Mark drawls, "How utterly ridiculous of me to worry that maybe, you might not be the best judge of things, at the moment." Pointedly, he eyes Misha's salad, reminds him that picking at his lunch doesn't constitute eating it.

"Well, maybe I'm not the best judge of things," Misha says, and Mark almost chokes on his pasta. Not that this stops Misha from telling him: "I mean… okay, maybe I'm not the best judge of my own shit right now. But I'm a pretty damn good judge of other people—and I judge that those two girls are going to be going to the campus Eating Disorders Anonymous meetings by finals week."

It's not, Mark decides, worth arguing with Misha on this point. He's gone and convinced himself of something, so he's not going to be dissuaded until cold, hard facts come along to prove him wrong. Possibly several times. Maybe in ways that involve beating him upside the head with just how wrong he is. Which, come to think, doesn't sound like such a bad idea.

*******

**_8._** "You know," Misha says, midway through one of their sessions, when he's flopped back on the sofa and staring into space at the ceiling. "I do so many stupid things because I want to feel skinny—and before you ask, it's not that it doesn't worry me, but… it's just something that I think about, and it's something that I do, and I don't really know how I feel about it. It's just kind of a thing, you know?"

"I don't honestly think that I do know, but I'll humor you anyway," Mark supposes, and sighs heavily. "Go on. No really, Misha, go on. Talk about that a bit more."

Misha kicks at the sofa's armrest once, and twice, and goes for a third before he flops down into passivity again. "Well, I mean, I do stupid things because I want to feel skinny? That's pretty straightforward, isn't it?"

Mark doesn't bother fighting the impulse to roll his eyes. "Well, yes, but how straightforward it is or isn't doesn't really have any bearing on how I would like you to discuss your feelings on the matter, go into more detail… I mean, since you use me as a therapist and that's basically what any half-decent therapist would make you do."

Huffing, Misha gives Mark a half-assed, kicked puppy pout—and when he gets nothing for it, he whines. Gives up. Says, "Like, this one time? I almost had a threesome with my sister once? And I didn't even really like the other guy who would've been involved in it. I couldn't fucking stand him. But I wanted to feel skinny so badly that the whole mess of bullshit seemed like a good idea. Or like it'd be worth the wasted time and effort."

"You almost did _what_?" Mark splutters, waits for Misha to confirm what he said—then heaves a sigh and shakes his head. "Somehow, despite that outburst, I'm not entirely surprised by this. You and Vicki are more attractive and more closely bonded than most siblings I've ever met. And you're more open to that sort of suggestion. At least…"

He pauses to comb his hand back through his hair and sigh again, refuses to admit that he's still trying to process this revelation. And the worst part is that he's not even exaggerating that much when he says, "Well, at the very least, it's not the worst case of shenanigans that I could see the two of you getting up to, so… How would that hypothetical threesome have proven that you were skinny?"

Misha shrugs and wriggles around for a moment, quite pointlessly. "Well, the other guy? His name was David, and see, David was a pretty popular guy at our high school. Handsome. Football star—our football, I mean. Not yours. The kind of football that should be called hand-egg. And anyway, he took a liking to Vicki during senior year—which was fair enough, I guess. Her tutoring pretty much got him into college. And then he wanted to have a threesome because I guess having one with a set of twins was on his bucket list or something? It might've happened if he hadn't been too drunk to get it up much less _consent_."

"You're spectacularly avoiding the question that I actually asked here…"

"Well, isn't the logic of it fairly self-explanatory?" Misha actually sits up to blink at Mark. The idea that his logic isn't quite so self-evident doesn't seem to have occurred to him at all. "I just mean… I would've had sex with this hot guy with a questionable personality who was only into me as a piece of ass because I wanted to feel skinny. So there's the bad. But in so doing… I would've banged the quarterback. I would've done something that no one in high school thought that I could ever do. It would've been amazing for me—but Vicki and I couldn't do it because he was too shit-faced. It would've been wrong. But I still would've truly, _finally_ been skinny because I'd accomplished that, y'know?"

Mark starts to say that he doesn't know, actually, but catches himself and trips up on something else entirely: "Wait a minute. What the Hell do you mean, _finally_ skinny?"

"I did get to fuck him eventually, though," Misha says with a pleasant hum. "It was back around last Christmas, while Gen and I were fooling around but before we were really official. Vicki and I went home for break, and I ran into David at the bookstore I used to work at. Still hot—hotter, actually. He gained a _lot_ of weight during his undergrad—God, he wound up pear-shaped, too, and his ass was just… And you know what? He kissed me like he was _starving_ for it."

Misha goes on and on for a while without prompting, rhapsodizing about how great his one-night stand with this guy was, how he touched on the guy everywhere, how everything about the guy was soft and warm and flabby—and Mark never does get an answer to his question about the notion of Misha _finally_ being skinny. Misha goes home without giving Mark an answer. And Mark tries to rationalize, tries to puzzle things out on his own—it could be, he reasons, some kind of disordered thinking to go with Misha's broken relationship with food—but everything that he comes up with leaves him feeling cold. Leaves him thinking that his potential explanations might just be outright wrong.

*******

**_7._** "Sometimes, I think I might actually have an eating disorder," Misha confesses one time, "but every time I think that, it makes me think about Richard, and then I just want to puke, or run until my veins pump hydrochloric acid, or something like that."

Mark wants to shake Misha by the shoulders until his brain splatters on the inside of his skull. "And you don't think that this is the least bit worrisome?" he says, vaguely wishing that he took notes on all of their sessions, just for the sake of posterity. "Or perhaps that it's indicative of how you might possibly have an eating disorder?"

All Misha does is shrug, and shake his head, and drop back onto the sofa. "Not really."

Mark sighs and rubs at the bridge of his nose. "How much have you eaten today?"

"Egg whites for breakfast, half-a-salad for lunch, and I've been snacking on almonds all day. And I still feel like I've been gorging myself, so there's that. For whatever it's worth."

"Well, I'm not a doctor, and I don't play one on TV, but I'd say that it's worth a great deal," Mark says through a huff. "And you don't think _that's_ potentially indicative of how you might possibly have an eating disorder? Or at the very least, a broken relationship with food."

"It's not my fault that you had a meeting during lunch."

"It's no one's _fault_ that you have trouble with food, but it _is_ something that needs to get addressed, maybe even by—and yes, I know you don't want to hear this, but tough crap, Princess—because _maybe_? You need to have these things addressed by a _real_ doctor, instead of just dumping them all on me."

"I don't need a real doctor. At least, I might someday, but not right now."

Mark doesn't even care that Misha can watch him roll his eyes. "Were they at least salted almonds?"

"Raw," Misha says without missing a beat. "Or unsalted. Is it raw almonds or raw cashews that are poisonous to humans?"

"And you're asking _me_? You're the one who's obsessed with food."

To Mark's surprise, Misha doesn't even try to deny it. He just nods, and shrugs again, and starts talking about how he knows that he shouldn't feel fat, with how little he's eaten today, but he can't help the fact that he still does. The question of whether or not this indicates a potential eating disorder continues to go ignored, but then again? That much is hardly a surprise.

*******

**_6._** It's getting late into one of their sessions when Misha confesses that he's jealous of his sister—and to be honest, for all Mark didn't expect that to come up, he's not exactly surprised by it, either. After all, Vicki has more than her fair share of enviable qualities. She's fiercely intelligent, she's loyal and creative and a snappy dresser, if Mark does say so himself.

"Yeah, because the jeans and t-shirts we both wear are totally haute couture. Same for Grandma Krushnic's homemade sweaters," Misha drawls, making the roll of his eyes audible. "You know, for thinking that I have an eating disorder? You always go and guess exactly the wrong things that someone with an eating disorder would probably think. Not that I'd know for certain, because I don't have one, but my point remains?"

Mark decides not to point out how uncertain Misha sounds about that statement. It's probably too much of a low blow. "Fine, then," he says. "Would you kindly tell me why you envy your sister so much?"

Misha sighs, slouching against the sofa's armrest and giving Mark a long, exhausted look to go with his posture. "It's nothing huge," he mutters, combs his hand back through his hair. "It's just, like. She's not perfect—I know she's not perfect. She's got a metric fuck-ton of character defects. She's impulsive, she's judgmental—not that I can really judge her for that, in good conscience, or that I would—she can hold a grudge like nobody's business…"

"I feel like you're building up to a _but_ here…"

"Of course I'm building up to a but here, Mark, and it's just… She's not perfect, _but_ I still wish that I could have the genes that she's got. Not because she's smarter than I am—even though she totally _is_ —and not because of anything that I _should_ be focusing on, like her talents or her personality? But I want her genes because she's naturally skinny. She doesn't have to bust her ass for it in the same way that I do."

True to form, Misha fails to explain what in the Hell he means by that. He never explains this notion that he isn't naturally skinny, just changes the subject as soon as Mark asks about it and goes home without saying what he meant. At this point, Mark's just coming to expect that out of him.

*******

**_5._** Another time, Misha comes over and just cuts right to the heart of what's on his mind. He's not even on the sofa before he says: "You know what the absolute worst fucking part about all of the lingering Richard shit is, Mark?"

Mark shrugs and supposes that it could be how much Misha still loves someone he can't have. "But, then again, I'm not you, so I'd guess that I probably don't know what the worst part of it is, from your perspective."

Misha sighs, closing his eyes and finally flopping into place. Mulling things over, he leans his head back on the sofa cushion. "The worst part about it is that I'm not even all that mad at him for leaving the way he did. Yeah, it hurt and shit, but I've got it all figured out. He'd never have done that—at least not in the way that it happened—if not for his fuck-head father. But even that's not the bad part."

"It's not the bad part that you've concocted some surely half-baked explanation for why your ex-boyfriend wandered off right after dumping you and promising to stay in as a member of your support network?" He's certain that he's given himself away in this, but Mark watches Misha closely, and Misha barely reacts at all.

"The bad part," he says, "is that I don't even blame him for getting rid of me. Or, like, if his dad wasn't involved in it? I wouldn't blame him for getting rid of me. I would've dumped me, too. I'd still dump me—but I especially would've gone and dumped me, then. I was fucked up all to high Hell and Richard needed to get away from that. And I can't blame him for putting his mental health first. I wouldn't have even needed to be thinking about that before I dumped me."

Mark almost drops his pen, but manages to recover, manages not to splutter as he says, "And this doesn't worry you at all?"

"Well, not exactly?" Misha looks at Mark as though he's started speaking German, or trotted out a technicolor hand-puppet to do it for him.

"Define, 'not exactly' for me, Princess," Mark says, fighting the impulse to huff and thwack Misha on the back of the head. "Your version of 'not exactly' and my version of 'not exactly' are probably wildly different—I say, just considering that you still seem to think that egg whites and almonds constitute an amount of food enough for two meals."

Groaning, Misha knocks his head against the cushion—and from the looks of it, he probably wishes that he could knock his head into the wall more easily. "Well, I acknowledge that it's a pretty shitty thing to think about yourself?" he says, and frankly, Mark should probably be grateful that Misha's even going that far. "But at the same time, it doesn't really worry me because… well, I'm damaged goods, you know? In case we missed the memo, I'm pretty fucked up and not exactly the most stable individual. And I just can't blame Richard for wanting somebody better."

"Define, 'somebody better' for me—and I'm only asking because, to be blunt? I want to make sure that your definition of, 'somebody better' isn't completely self-abasing and ridiculous—I'm fairly certain that it is, but you're absolutely invited to prove me wrong on this count. Please do." He shouldn't be thinking what he's thinking, not least since it's absolutely not in the vein of trying to help Misha.

But, thankfully, Misha stays oblivious. Just says, "Well, I only mean… I can't blame Richard for wanting somebody who's stable, somebody who's got their shit together and stuff. Somebody who isn't constantly set to self-destruct. I can't blame him for not wanting me."

"What Richard _wants_ is…" Mark starts, and only barely catches himself. "What Richard wants isn't the important part here, Misha. The important part here is that you feel these things, and the important part is what you're feeling…" It's some half-assed attempted psychobabble, but Misha seems to buy it, even when Mark goes on and says, "The most important part about the whole cluster of things with Richard has nothing to do with what Richard wants, or what you think he wants, or anything to actually do with him. It's all about you and your emotions now."

Mark's not entirely sure how it happens, but soon after that, he and Misha end up kissing. Not that it's ever been off the table—friends with benefits has been their open arrangement for a while now—but even more surprising than that is how shy Misha gets, how he wilts under Mark's touches, how he kisses like he's some blushing freshman all over again. Instead of groping at Mark's belly or the rolls of pudge along his hips, instead of getting bossy and handsy, Misha lets Mark take charge of everything—this should probably worry Mark more than it does, but on the other hand, he likes the feeling of sucking on Misha's lips too much to stop.

*******

**_4._** "Wait, wait, wait a minute," Mark splutters, right into the middle of Misha's current tirade—something or other about being jealous of Jared—cutting him off quite spectacularly.

He gives Mark a long, sad look like an orphan kitten—but Mark's undeterred by it: "So, let me get this straight, Misha. Not only are you playing Jensen's feeder, even though it's potentially triggering you—"

"Nothing is potentially triggering me, because I don't have triggers, Mark. Triggers are serious things and I don't have any—"

"Sometimes, you get it in your head that you shouldn't eat today because you had a _dream_ about cupcakes and woke up feeling slightly fat. Whether you like it or not, I _think_ that you just might have triggers, Princess. Just a tad." The logic is simple, to Mark, even if he knows that he's making sweeping statements about mental health that isn't his.

"That only happened _once_." Misha huffs and glares daggers at Mark. "Besides, I'm talking to you, aren't I? I'm letting you watch me like a hawk at lunch, even though it makes me feel fucking skeevy. I'm acknowledging that something's going on with me that isn't right—isn't that enough fucking _progress_ for you?"

"Not when you're apparently playing feeder to _both_ of the fucking Jays," Mark snaps. "How are you even playing feeder for Jared? He's at bloody Oxford."

Misha hunches his shoulders, curls his legs up to his chest. "I send him meal plans or suggestions, and recipes for things that'll make him gain weight," he says, voice flat and barely above a whisper. "And it's not like it was my idea, okay? He came to _me_ , before Jensen even went and recruited me to be his temporary feeder, talking about how he thought Jensen was insecure about getting fatter while Jared isn't… What the Hell else was I supposed to do? Let my best friend's relationship possibly suffer? Let my best friend feel insecure, and terrible about himself, and maybe all kinds of other shitty things?"

"You could've tried telling Jared, 'Look, I know this is important to you, and it's important to me too because I want you both to be happy together, but _this situation is very, very likely to trigger my eating disorder_ —'"

"I don't have an eating disorder!"

"Fine, whatever, it would've triggered your _anxiety_ disorder—"

"Fucking _thank_ you—"

"But the point remains that you do not need to be feeding _both_ of them, much less keeping what you're doing with each one of them secret from the other. It is messing with your head in really unfortunate ways, and just…" Mark groans, slumping back into his armchair. "What in the world is so goddamn wrong with you that you _deliberately_ put yourself into triggering situations? Or if you don't want to use that word, then how about this: what is so wrong with you that you deliberately put yourself into situations that induce anxiety that you so obviously have trouble managing? Why does this strike you as any kind of good idea? _Why_."

Misha just shrugs. "Because I didn't want their relationship to suffer, on the one hand," he says. "But then on the other, now it's like… Jensen might be insecure, and Jared might be insecure too, and it's not like I _consciously_ intended to screw them over? I didn't think things through enough, I'll say that much, but… what if they break up, Mark? Because then it'll probably be my fault? And I've thought about picking up the pieces with Jensen if they break up—like comforting him and maybe getting him to go with me—does that make me a bad person? It probably does, right?"

Mark grinds on the bridge of his nose hard enough to hurt himself. "I swear to God, Misha: if I have to tell you that you're not responsible for _their_ relationship _one more goddamn time_ , I will kick you in the fucking head."

*******

**_3._** Misha comes back for another session just a few days after his big, "I used to weigh three-hundred-fifty pounds, I spent four summers losing it all at fat camp" reveal—and it's a fairly quiet session between them. They barely say anything, but sit in a silence that, somehow, manages not to get so terribly awkward. The issue that Misha eventually brings to the table is that he hates not being open about this with Jensen, but still can't think of how or when to bring up the subject with him.

"I'm kinda thinking of just putting one of my old pictures up on Facebook and letting that be that," he says to the ceiling, giving Mark a pensive sigh to work with in lieu of being able to see his facial expression, at the moment. "I don't even know if he'd notice if I did that, he's almost never even _on_ Facebook—but it'd make it easier to bring the whole thing up, since if he _did_ notice, he'd probably go and do that for me."

"And I fail to see how that's any kind of good idea for you," Mark points out, and adjusts himself in the armchair, turns so his legs drape over the one armrest and he slouches into the other, facing Misha. "You need to be able to _own_ the conversation, when it happens. You need to make sure that you have a talk with him in your own time and on your own terms. Otherwise, it's going to be too easy for you to feel forced into confessing things that you'd rather not confess, in ways that you'd rather not confess them—all I see coming out of it is an enormous mess. And as your friend, I'm against you ending up with any more unwanted messiness in your life."

Misha huffs and thinks this over for a moment, then goes down another road entirely: "My Mom is another issue with bringing up the issue with Jen. He hates her enough already, and I feel like he's just going to have more reason to hate her if we end up talking about the role she played in all of the fat camp stuff? Like how it was her idea in the first place, even if I wound up wanting to go back every year?"

"It's not as though Jensen is completely without reason to dislike your mother, though." And the fact that they actually need to discuss this makes Mark feel vaguely inclined to attempt putting his forehead through a brick wall. Clearly, Richard hasn't been exaggerating how overly loyal Misha is to the woman—not that Mark can afford to think about Richard at a time like this, at a time when he has Misha on his couch. "I just mean," he says, "that… Yes, granted? A good deal of Jensen's dislike for your mother stems from his issues with his own, but at the same time? Your mother has behaved in some fairly questionable ways in full view of both him and me, and I don't believe that he's entirely off-base in worrying about her potentially triggering you. Whether she means to do so or not, it's still something that could happen."

Misha rolls onto his side and curls in on himself. "Everything my mom's ever done," he says, "regardless of what you guys might think about it? She's done because she loves me and she wants what's best for me. It's just that… sometimes, she can't express that in a way that most people understand. And sometimes, she has to be kind of harsh about it. Because sometimes, I don't listen."

"Well, far be it from me to attempt intruding on a mother-son relationship…" Mark only lets himself roll his eyes because Misha's not looking at him. "But it still sounds to me like you and your mother need to have a conversation about her behavior triggering you. And maybe? Just going out on a limb here, mind you, but… perhaps, the first person you need to talk to about the eating disorder that you might or might not have? Isn't Jensen after all. It sounds, to me, like that person might be her."

"And I think you might be reading too much into things, but… whatever, I guess. You're the pretend therapist here, not me."

*******

**_2._** "You know," Misha says one night, actually bothering to sit up and look Mark in the eye, which should be the biggest sign that what he's saying is Of Great Importance. "Sometimes, just talking to you about all this shit makes me feel like I'm cheating on somebody important? What d'you make of that?"

Mark shrugs and shakes his head. "Well, I suppose that I'd want you to elaborate before I could make any real, honest judgments about the matter. Just on the grounds that it sounds like there's more going on here than just what you're telling me."

Misha flops onto the armrest, leaning his cheek down on his folded-up forearms. "Not really?" he says. "I feel like I'm cheating on somebody special because I come and talk to you. I mean, on the one hand, it's a Jensen thing. I feel like I'm sort of cheating on him because he's supposed to be my best friend and… okay, yeah, I don't want to worry him, but still, you know? It's like I want to tell him, but I can't, because it'd make his life harder than it already is?"

"And on the other hand?" This explanation had better be good, or Mark's not entirely certain he could resist the urge to thwap Misha with love.

"Well… on the other hand?" Misha ducks his head, turning his eyes down to the floor. "On the other hand, Jensen isn't even involved. Because even worse than the thought of telling _him_ anything is the thought of telling _anyone_ anything. Because no matter how much I feel like I need to, and no matter how much I might want to, and no matter how much anything? I've still got this evil little voice in the back of my head, telling me I can't do it and I should just go run for three hours because of how many calories are in the salad that I had for lunch."

"Sometimes, Princess, I swear to God…" Mark sighs, trying his damnedest not to groan, because that would be rather a bit unseemly. But all the same… "Sometimes, I could just beat you upside the head with a bat labeled, 'wake up, you have an eating disorder.'"

Misha blinks at him for a moment, and ultimately, just shrugs. "And sometimes, I could smack you upside the ass with a paddle labeled, 'quit trying to tell me how I feel, asshole,' but you'd still probably keep doing it, and I still wouldn't have an eating disorder, so maybe we should just call it quits for tonight."

*******

**_1._** Whenever Misha calls, Mark's always sure to answer him, even if it's just by sending him a text message in return. Whenever Misha calls looking for sex, Mark's always game to fuck him and, if necessary, reaffirm that he's skinny. Whenever Misha calls looking for anything at all, Mark tries to give it to him.

What he doesn't do is let Misha know the one, huge thing that really seems like it might help: Mark knows what happened to Richard. He knows where Richard's been this whole time, and could even speak to Richard's thoughts on everything Misha's brought up where Richard's been an issue. Mark could tell Misha exactly what happened, give him the closure that he's so obviously lacking—but he never brings it up.

It's probably important—more than probably, even; Mark's fairly certain that it _is_ important—but on the other hand? Misha's going through enough without Mark swooping in to make it worse.


End file.
